Cohabiting, But Not Always Cooperating
by Schermionie
Summary: For the List Challenge. When you live with someone, it's easier to hate them than to try and get along all the time. Unfortunately, Daphne Greengrass and Seamus Finnigan figure this out a little too late... - Daphne/Seamus, oneshot.


Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ belongs to J.k. Rowling, not I, although just today I did in fact gain the ownership of two tickets to see _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1_ on the day it comes out. Booyah.

Oh, and usually I just blag this kind of stuff out and hope no one notices, but I'll just let you know that I have never been and probably will never go to university, and neither have I ever flat-shared. Thank you, Muse, for any possible errors and whatnot that may be contained within this...

Challenge Name: The List Challenge

Challenge Issuer: White Ferrets

Where?: HPFC

Challenge: Pick some numbers and get some characters, quotes and objects and write. My characters were Daphne and Seamus, my three quotes can be found italicised throughout the story, and the objects... um... well I'm afraid I didn't manage to fit them in because I was too busy using all of the quotes instead. Eeek. I hope that's okay. They were just too good!

Notes: Well, this is nerve-wracking. This was the first Daphne/Seamus fic I ever wrote, and I've really developed a taste for the pairing and these kind of characterisations for these two since. But, does it have any appeal? I don't know. And I can see problems with this fic already, and I'm worried. Please read and review - your thoughts, whatever they are, have worth to me. But I do hope you enjoy it!~

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_"Clothes, make up, clothes, make up, clothes. Fascinating stuff, eh?"_

Seamus Finnigan had to be _the most annoying_ roommate to have ever existed. He put his stuff everywhere, touched and moved all of _her_ stuff and then complained when she shouted at him about it and changed the wards when he was out.

He would often call her silly names ('Daffs', 'Daphy Bunny', 'Greeny'), yet when she told them he was a stupid leech who should drop out of university because it wasn't like he'd pass _or_ get a girlfriend, he called _her_ childish!

Sometimes he'd stare at her while she studied and it really, really annoyed her.

Every so often they would have a row about mess or dishes or hairs in the shower or things left out of the fridge and then he'd tell her 'It's a damn shame yer Mam raised you to be so stuck-up'. There'd be thrown objects (all his because his things were everywhere and easily grabbed in the heat of the moment; it wasn't like she'd throw her _own_ stuff, either) and maybe a few things said that they _didn't_ mean, and then either one of them would go out and have some fun while the other one sat at home eating ice cream/drinking whisky and thinking of all the reasons they hated the other.

Then the next day the bills would come and they'd agree that they liked each other after all and that they shouldn't look for somewhere else to live, not while they were penniless students who refused to stay in the dirty university dorms.

Then the next day he'd say something _really_ funny and she'd laugh so much she'd forget it all until the next row.

_"I hate you._

"And I won't ever talk to you again if you go out tomorrow night."

_"Okay," _he replied flatly. _"Hey, d'you know what's for dinner?"_

One thing about Seamus that had changed since school, she noted with irritation, was that he no longer rose to every bit of bait someone hung in front of him. Aside from comments about his mother (which she wouldn't even go near, despite knowing how much it would wind him up), there wasn't much that could reach him. And that wasn't exactly unusual where men were concerned. _Where_ were his weak points? On days like this, Daphne really wished she knew.

"You should be telling _me_ that," she said, pretending his nonchalance to such a statement didn't affect her. "It's _your_ turn tonight."

Seamus shook his head. "Nah, I think you'll find it's your turn."

"_No_, I think you'll find it's Thursday, and if you've somehow forgotten then I'll just have to waste my time to remind you: _you_ cook on Thursdays."

"True. But there's something you seem to've forgotten too, so I'll just have to waste my time to remind you: we agreed that if either of us tried to emotionally blackmail the other, that person would have to do all the chores for the next two days."

Daphne spluttered, caught off guard and not at all liking it. "But that - that's so stupid - _I said that when I was drunk_!"

"Drunkenness makes you say the things you really mean," shot back Seamus.

Daphne could almost _hear _the quote marks on that one. "I said that when I was drunk, too!"

Seamus just handed her the apron and deadpanned, "I'm hungry, slave."

"You're taking advantage of me," said Daphne, refusing to take the apron, "and only scumbags take advantage of drunk women."

"Right, four days it is."

"What - I'm not - I wasn't - this rule is _ridiculous_. I've got an assignment due in five days time, how could I possibly finish that if I'm at your beck and call all the time?"

His smirk reminded her of Draco at his worst. Ugh. "...I'll be _nice_, then. Take care of food tonight and after that things can go back to normal. Deal?"

"...Deal," said Daphne, shaking his hand before he had the chance to forbid her from ordering a take-away. Gryffindors were so naïve... a little cute sometimes, actually... not that Seamus was cute, but - well -

"This is unusually merciful of you," she blurted.

Sometimes he made so little sense to her, which really just pissed her off even more.

He stopped in the doorway of their tiny kitchen, but didn't turn back around. "I finished my work early and thought we might spend a day together or something. But if you're busy, never mind."

Daphne stared after him as he walked out; once he'd closed the door behind him, she took the apron from where he'd tossed it onto the worktop. She didn't really fancy a take-away, when she thought about it.

_"Don't be afraid. I'm as innocent as a kitten. I swear."_

With an opening sentence like _that_, her thoughts had not been hopeful. All Daphne's parents had wanted for her to be was the docile little pure-blood wife like her holier-than-thou sister Astoria was, but Daphne had had other plans.

She wanted to _learn_ and be self-sufficient some day. She wanted to stand out for more than just her looks and perfect pure-blood etiquette.

When she'd explained this to her parents, they'd told her that being self-sufficient involved cut-backs and making one's own money. They'd told her that she must pay at least half the university fees; providing she chose a suitable course, they would pay the rest. So she'd swallowed her pride and worked at dead end after dead end job in order to scrape up the money, and, finally, she had.

When she'd looked at the dorms of her chosen university, though, her privileged upbringing had interfered and she simply couldn't do it; she _couldn't_ live with communal bathrooms and kitchens. So Daphne had had one more year of work, spent one more maddening year at home, saving as much money as she could.

Then, looking for somewhere, she'd realised that she _still_ wouldn't be able to afford a decent place without outside assistance, rent being as absurdly high as it was. She'd met up with a lot of people in the same situation, but they either didn't have enough money or didn't meet her standards or wanted something _more_ from a female flatmate than she ever wanted to give them.

Seamus Finnigan had not seemed promising at first. She'd remembered him from school, of course. He hadn't had particularly good grades; he'd seemed cheery and obnoxious in that Gryffindor way of his, and he wasn't a pure-blood.

Somehow, though, they'd hit it off. She'd asked him why he was going to university, and his reasons had been much the same as hers. He'd wanted to stand out, but not for superficial reasons. It was about the time that he'd left school that he'd realised: _This is it. What now? _He'd had nothing left but work in his immediate future, but he'd still had something of the student in him.

Seamus had also wanted to go back to Ireland and study there. Daphne had liked that, how he talked so passionately of his homeland, how he knew his family tree as well as she knew hers. He'd wanted to get away from Hogwarts and all the bad memories of England like she had, too, and his family hadn't been able to cough up the money for the high fees; they were older than many of their classmates, in age and in other ways, and they'd both known it would matter.

They hit it off because they were strangely similar in nature, yet similarities can be a curse as well as a cure. When you live with someone, it's easier to hate them than to try and get along all the time.

_Just three more years_, she'd think when he was past a deadline _again_ and keeping her up all night with his fretting and his pleading for help (not that they were even taking the same course).

_Just two more years_, she'd think when he told her that he didn't really trust her male friends and that if she trusted them and was betrayed then, well, he'd _told_ her.

_Just one more year_, she'd think when he brought home yet another bimbo on his arm and expected her to be pleased for them.

_No time at all_, she thought two years later, preparing dinner for him on a Thursday night in the flat they'd never quite managed to leave.


End file.
